“If I have got to hand out water bottles to the team and get towels, if that's what's going to make the team better, that's what I am going to do,” Butler said.

The Cowboys have plenty of water boys at training camp. What they lack is an abundance of quality pass rushers.

Dallas ranked seventh in the NFL last season with 42 sacks, but Pro Bowl outside linebacker DeMarcus Ware had 19½ of them. One of the Cowboys' goals is to leave Oxnard with a sense that someone is going to step forward to help Ware this season.

That's where Butler, a fourth-year pro, comes in. The Oregon State alum seems poised for a breakout campaign after finishing last season with three sacks, a career-high nine quarterback pressures and a career-best 233 plays from scrimmage.

“(Defensive coordinator Rob Ryan) is already hammering on that in meetings, (saying), 'We've got to have more than one pass rusher, and we'd like for you to do that,'” Butler said. “We've got to have guys get better at harassing the passer and not have DeMarcus Ware have 2,200 sacks a year and get some other guys in there.”

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Anthony Spencer, who starts opposite Ware, was second on the team last season with six sacks. He's playing on a one-year franchise-tag tender of $8.8 million, so it's not inconceivable that the Cowboys give Butler, who also is in the final year of his rookie contract, a bigger role to see if he can take over as a starter next season.

With Spencer sidelined with a hamstring injury, Butler has worked with the first team in practice.

“We're just pushing each other when we can,” Butler said. “I don't want any of my teammates to get hurt. But we all have to take advantage of opportunities when we get them. I know ‘Spence' will be back soon. I have to make plays when I get in there.”

“He's quick off the ball, he's explosive, and he can bend (around the offensive tackle), so you can't have enough of those guys,” Garrett said. “We feel like we've got a couple of really good ones as our starters. Victor's getting a lot of work with Spencer being out, and he'll just continue to show us what he can do.”

Translation: Butler must prove he can be consistent.

“That has a lot to do with it,” Garrett said. “We don't really want flash players, a guy that can make a great catch, make a sack, and then we don't see him for 10, 12 plays. That's not really the objective. The objective is consistent performance.

“Obviously, when you make some of those splash plays, that's a good thing for our team, but you have to maintain a consistent performance the next down, and Victor has gotten a lot better at that as he's matured as a player.”

Butler said it was “very frustrating” to be part of a defense that ranked in the middle of the pack and struggled to protect leads in the fourth quarter. Dallas blew fourth-quarter leads in five of its eight losses last year.

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Cowboys camp

When: Through Aug. 21

Where:

• Oxnard, Calif. (Through Aug. 17)

• San Diego (Aug. 18-21; joint workouts with Chargers on Aug. 20-21)

Preseason schedule:

• Aug. 13 @Raiders, 7 p.m., ESPN

• Aug. 18 @Chargers, 8 p.m., KMYS, NFL Network

• Aug. 25 vs. Rams, 7 p.m., KMYS

• Aug. 29 vs. Dolphins, 7:30 p.m., KMYS

Regular-season opener: Sept. 5 @Giants, 7:30 p.m., NBC

“Nobody likes to look stupid,” Butler said. “As a defense, that's how we felt we looked last year.”

Butler believes the answer to becoming a better defense has nothing to do with improving schemes and everything to do with individual responsibility.

“It's all about being a competitor,” he said. “You come out here and want to compete with DeMarcus Ware. You want to compete with Anthony Spencer. You want to compete with yourself to get better every day. What can I do from Play 1 to Play 50 to be a better player, a better member of this team? That's what it's all about.”